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DAILY SHOT

Premiere: Amanda Shires, “Wasted and Rollin’”

“A theme? I guess there’s a lot of wrecking and ruination,” says Amanda Shires, the singer-songwriter from Lubbock, Texas, whose new album, Down Fell the Doves, comes out on August 6. “When I was writing these songs, I broke a fiddle on stage and broke my finger in three spots and was fresh out of a breakup.”

Photo by Jimmy Collins

Shortly after that breakup, however, Shires began dating fellow musician Jason Isbell. The two were engaged by the time Isbell went into the studio earlier this year to record his most recent solo album. Newly sober and madly in love, Isbell put together what many critics have called his best work yet. Now it’s her turn. Backed by her own frenetic fiddling and the rumbling notes of her husband’s guitar, Shires digs deep into her dark side with a honeyed voice and a part-time graduate student’s intellectual sensibility.

And she sings about more than just death and destruction. “Wasted and Rollin’” is a countrified ode to carryin' on that could have anchored a mid-seventies Loretta Lynn album. Take a first listen to "Wasted and Rollin'" here, and look out for Down Fell the Doves early next month.